When I first checked out this game, I had low expectations. The NDS hasn’t been particularly good when it came to this series. The prequel was ridiculously difficult, and the sequel looked as if the developers had put in zero effort and wanted to cheat the fans. Soon after I started playing, I found Avatar: The Last Airbender -- The Burning Earth to be a pleasant surprise.

Released in 2007, The Burning Earth is the second of the three Avatar games released for the DS. You play through the plot of the second book, Earth.

With it’s graphics and fun gameplay, The Burning Earth is worth playing.

Let’s dive in.

Graphics are a Strength - 9 / 10

The graphics are a true strength of the game. It’s very similar to the graphics of the prequel with minor refinements, particularly for calligraphic text and items. The character sprites look unchanged, but they were already of high quality. It’s easy to distinguish between characters, and they were used for the cut scenes. That wouldn’t have worked nearly as well had they been of low quality.

The environments were of decent quality. Unfortunately, they highly restrict movement and there’s very little to interact with. They also get somewhat repetitive in the larger cities, but not overly so.

With it’s high quality graphics, there is very little to improve upon. The designers took a component that worked in the last game, and found a way to make it even better. The graphics weren’t perfect, but they’re undoubtedly impressive.

9 / 10.

Thematic Music - 7 / 10

The music was thematic and fit well in the context of the game. There’s special music for battling, and tense situations had music that matched.

The sound effects were decent. They were repetitive, but it wasn’t bad. The only sound effect that truly annoyed me played during the speech bubbles during character conversation. It really got annoying, especially during some of the more long-winded conversations. Aside from that, there were few problems.

One interesting addition was character voices. They didn’t play every time a character talked, but near the end of the level, a character would actually say his or her line. It was random but neat nevertheless.

With fitting music and only one problematic sound effect, this component scores high.

7 / 10.

Too Short to be Addictive, but has Replay Value - 6 / 10

Unlike the GBA port, The Burning Earth isn’t simply a brawler. You do play mini-games and have to use some strategy when fighting. However, there is a component of brawling that cannot be ignored. Most of the time when you face the fire nation troops whom are spread out around the map, you’ll fight them off by button mashing. So if you particularly dislike brawlers, you aren’t going to be a fan of the dozens upon dozens of opponents that you’ll be fighting while completing objectives.

This is the type of game that you can finish in one sitting, if you have a free evening. Unfortunately, that means that there isn’t enough storyline to get addicted. Still, it’s particularly fun while it lasts, and I’ve returned to this one several times over the past few months.

There’s a certain satisfaction to progressing in the game, and that’s in part due to difficulty. While I won’t go into that with too much depth here, I will say that it’s highly likely that you will get stuck somewhere on your first playthrough. You might need to search the map multiple times to find what you’re looking for. Thankfully it’s unlikely that you’ll be stuck for long. Still, this detracts from addictiveness.

While it’s too short to truly get addicted, it does have some replay value, and it did make me return several times.

6 / 10.

Lots of Dialogue, Decent Story - 6.5 / 10

This game is based on the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It doesn’t follow the plotline exactly, but that’s true for most game adaptations. As for loosely sticking to the main plotline, the developers did a decent job.

They created a game that wasn’t particularly hard to follow, and the story played a key role. If you hate in game dialogue, then this isn’t the game for you. There is a LOT of dialogue. For me, I enjoy reading through the jokes and seeing the sprites interact. However, I know that many feel differently, and this was a major criticisms of the game. It depends on personal preference, so whether this is bad is up to you.

6.5 / 10.

Not Much Depth - 5 / 10

You play through the story. There’s not much else to do. So on that front there’s no depth.

Within the story however, there’s a little depth-but still not as much as one would like. There’s a LOT of fighting and tasks during which you will still find yourself fighting. There’s also mini games, but these are simplified and mostly serve to add a stylus-based component to the game.

There isn’t much depth, but there’s enough to keep you busy for a few hours.

5 / 10.

Strategy Involved - 6 / 10

There is a component of strategy to the game. If you don’t think, you will be making the game more difficult than it really is. While most fire nation troops can be defeated with some button mashing, other opponents require thinking things through. If you don’t, you’ll also be wasting your time by having to listen to somewhere between 1-2 minutes of dialogue at particular parts.

There’s also some difficulty with the controls-at first. It takes some precision to hit your target. However, this is not so much a problem of the game as it is a learning curve. The more you play, the easier it gets.

For those worried about the use of the stylus, it’s not that important. Minigames is where you’ll use them the most, but otherwise the game will be based on the buttons. If you want to use the stylus more, however, you’re in luck. Most of the buttons have stylus command counterparts. I’m not a fan of the stylus myself, which is why I’m happy with the choices offered.

Two things to take note of: Travelling, and Defeat in Battle

When you travel through an area, whether it’s for completing a task or just moving from point A to point B, you’ll be doing a lot of fighting. By now you should know that you’ll just be facing dozens of underpowered fire nation troops. What’s unfortunate is that they respawn if you retrace your steps. It’s something to keep in mind should you decide to go back to see whether you’ve missed something. On the other hand, it’s a good way to farm gold drops, if you’re in need of supplies. I wouldn’t recommend attempting to do this until you’re more experienced, as you’ll end up losing more health than the money you get can buy.

When you get defeated in battle, you start at the beginning of that battle with how much health you had at that time. This leads to a major problem in the game. Should you be without supplies and go into battle with little health, you might find it impossible to progress. If you’re playing on the DS, that save might be rendered useless. It’s definitely something to keep in mind.

This game requires thinking, and there is some difficulty involved. It’s not overly difficult, but if you underestimate it, you wasting a lot of time replaying sections.

6 / 10.

It’s fun - Overall: 7.1 / 10

Graphics : 9 * 20% = 1.8
Sound / Music : 7 * 20% = 1.4
Addictiveness : 6 * 25% = 1.5
Story : 6.5 * 15% = 0.975
Depth : 5 * 10% = 0.5
Difficulty : 6 * 10% = 0.9 (Optimal difficulty was 5/10)

Sum = Overall Score = 7.1 / 10.0

To sum up, The Burning Earth was well-made, and the best of the series on the NDS. If you do decide to check the series out, this is the one you want to play. The first one was too fiendishly difficult, and the third was a joke both in terms of investment of time by the developers and difficulty. This is the one game that’s just right.

It had room for improvement when it came to depth. It simply needed more content. I would not have minded having more to explore in the world either. Otherwise, this game surpassed expectations. It’s the one of game of the series that’s most likely to be enjoyed whether you’re familiar with the TV series or not. However, it helps to have a loose familiarity with the main plotline, should you choose to check it out.

Have you played this game before? Thinking of trying it out? Comment below.

I have only played the first game in the series, and I honestly think that it was pretty good. I personally think there were a lot of restrictions in what you can do, but when it comes to regular, non blockbuster games, I thought it was a pretty good game.

I did stop after the first one though, I hadn't even known that they actually continued the series, because back then I did here a few bad reviews of the first game. Your review makes it look like its a wonderful game compared to some of the other Ds games, and I think I might check it out sometime, who knows, maybe it can compete with dragon, Diamond, and Black 2 as some of my favorite Ds games.

Also, how much did you get for this review?

Another phenomenal review, as usual. You split it up into categories and gave each category a fair amount of detail, all in all adequately describing the game.

I think i played this game a very long time ago. I gave the cartridge away because it wasn't my thing. Perhaps i ought to try it again....